A faded photo
by LuckyPenny123
Summary: Mary Cattermole, nee Macdonald, sat on a broken marble column in the Ministry of Magic, holding a photo of her, Marlene McKinnon and Lily Evans, waiting for Lily's son to tell him what she knew of his mother. Please R&R!


**A/N: A second fic in two days! Hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Still not JK Rowling. *Sits down and cries***

**A faded photo**

Mary Cattermole, nee MacDonald, sat on a broken marble column in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic, hands firmly gripping a yellowing piece of paper. Just ten feet away from her, the war memorial, white marble stretching up to the sky, attracted glances from all workers and tourists wondering by. If she wanted to she would be able to find their names on it; names of friends and acquaintances and lovers, names that brought memories and a healthy dose of regret and sadness. Because, like every one else in that godforsaken world, Mary Cattermole had been affected by the war.

If you looked at her though, you'd notice that she wasn't looking at the memorial, instead she was gazing at the paper in her hand. A piece of paper that was covered in the fading photo of three girls. Marlene McKinnon stood tall and beautiful, a mixture of defiant eyes and star-bright hair. Next to her, Mary: small and dark haired, eyes rimmed with black eyeliner, arms weighed down with bracelets. And next to her, Lily Evans. As beautiful in the picture as she had been in real life. And so Mary sat, staring at the photograph and remembered.

Those days, full of school and gossip and laughter and tears, occupied Mary's thoughts a great deal these days. Those days, when they felt they were invincible, when Reg was just another Hufflepuff boy in the long lines of boys asking her out, when she thought Lily and James would last forever and Marlene would become Prime Minister. Those days were full of being young and beautiful and burning brighter than every star in the sky just because they could.

Reg didn't really understand it. He would look at her when she started talking about it all and sigh and whisper that they had to move on with their lives and she had. She'd tried so valiantly and succeeded too but it had all been brought back when Harry Potter had saved her from that same Ministry and looked so much like his parents.

And so now she was sitting in the Ministry waiting for him to show his face, holding a photo of his mother and praying he would understand.

Mary looked at the photo again, her eyes tracing Lily's pixie chin, Marlene's curving lips. They had been her best friends and she had loved them more than she ever thought possible. But at the end it hadn't mattered and she'd left them and gone and saved herself. She often wondered if she could have played it differently. If she could have stayed fighting for the Order, stayed fighting by her friends, died by her friends. She often wondered what would have happened if she'd stayed that October, instead of jetting off to Australia to hide her parents among tall trees and different accents. She often wondered…

Marlene had gripped her shoulders when she left her at the airport, had gripped her shoulders and looked in to her eyes and promised that she'd have a dinner party when she came back and that she'd write her letters telling her what was happening.

And of course she had. The first one came when she was in Melbourne, her parents left behind in some random farm and a funny feeling in her chest.

She would never forget those words, staring at her from the paper, broken hearted words that tore her world, interspersed among mundane comments about Harry's first words.

_They got Marlene. Oh crap, Mary, how could they? Why is this happening? We never asked for any of this – Marlene was the best of us… They deserve to rot in hell…_

And then two weeks later.

_Mary, I'm so sorry. Lily and James, they're- Voldemort got them and I know you've probably heard but I thought I should tell you… Harry's alright. He's with Petunia, Lily's sister. I tried to argue for you- _

And just like that her best friends had been taken from her and she had nothing left in the world, no parents, no family, nothing. She had gone back to London a changed woman. Quiet and sad, no black eyeliner, no bracelets. She had tried to find Remus, tried to visit Sirius, tried to find out the truth but it hurt and times were different and the war was over.

And then she met Reg and had kids and everything started to look up and she put the frame of her, Marlene and Lily in a box beneath her bed and tried to forget so her children would never know the sorrow she had felt. And she had succeeded until that night, five years ago, when they pulled her out of her bed and told her she didn't deserve to live and all she could think of was that they were wrong but she was scared and now she had so much more at stake.

Mary Cattermole, nee Macdonald, sat on that marble column, blinking back tears and wishing she had been braver, wishing that she could have stormed up to Petunia Dursley's house and demanded custody of her friend's son, wished she could have found him at some point before and told him about his parents. At the time she had consoled herself. He had Remus and then he had Sirius and then Remus again and they were best equipped to tell him everything- But now, now he only had her and it was finally time to step up and honour Lily's memory. And so she sat on the marble column and waited, waited for Harry Potter to show his face and Lily's memory be spread.

**A/N: Um… So I'm not really sure what this is or whether I've really done justice to it at all. In my head I had this amazing moment planned out, Mary finding Harry after the war because she had been friends with Lily but I don't think the beauty of this moment really transferred on to the paper. Sorry? Please review anyway? I think I could really do with some constructive criticism on this one!**

**And thank you to Jewels5 for first having the Mary Cattermole being Mary Macdonald idea. If you haven't already read the Life and Times, what are you doing? Go and read it RIGHT NOW! It is probably the best fic out there for Lily and James!**

**Don't forget to review xxxxx**


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